I'm left with just one more CD from the Moser Baer 100 pack I bought in Apr/May-2005. At that time it was Rs.12 per unit.

Yesterday I bought a Moser Baer 100 pack from the famous Mercy Electronics at Rs.750 for 100-Box, i.e, Rs.7.50 per unit. That's approximately a 19% drop over period of 5.5yrs. Do you think it's a good drop or not fast enough?

Interestingly Amazon has it cheaper at $12.99 (Rs.581 @ 1 USD = Rs.44.77 INR) and upwards (albeit brand is different, TDK). There are local Indian brands that are quite cheap as well, just no "guarantee" on quality though.

Sunday, January 02, 2011

Looks like Samsung Galaxy S model has been stopped in the market. I visited Samsung showroom to inquire about the price and was told that a new model will come in market by Jan-15 (Pongal timeframe). The reason is supposed to be Super AMOLED screen shortage and newer model will come out with Super LCD screen. Not sure about authenticity.

A few minutes aprior, I had visited Poorvika Mobile Showroom just adjacent to the Samsung showroom. They too informed me that there are no Samsung Galaxy S mobile handsets since 1 week in the market and they are expected to come in about a week's time. They didn't have more information beyond that.

It was a phone that was passed down to her from her sister via her mom. While the phone was a very old model (0.3MP camera), it was certainly fully functional and carrier lot of sentimental attachment. Resale value of it wouldn't be anything more than Rs.100 to Rs.300.

However, it brought back my attention to the fact that Indian telecom market is in between being ill-equipped and disinterested to handle mobile phone loss. While the service provider will block the sim and issue a duplicate one, they are not at all keen in tracing the mobile phone with the help of IMEI (this does require co-ordination between service providers so that the device can be tracked between networks).

The good thing however is that I remember reading an article in the newspapers recently (within last 2 weeks to a month) that mobile phone tracking (in case of loss, security?) is going to become a reality soon in the Indian market thanks to government pressure, service providers "supposedly" upgrading to required technology and collaborating between themselves. I'm not holding my breath on that one, but it would certainly be interesting and useful if it came to fruition.

We ended up getting an LG GS190 thanks to its support of an 8GB microSD card and an ok speaker phone - key requirements for the wife and kid to listen to music.

Interestingly, Univercell, the mobile phone retailer offered a mobile insurance plan for a year (to protect against loss, accidental damage, etc) for as little as Rs.50 (or Rs.100?), but I refused. I'm guessing getting that refund will be a problem in case of loss - thanks to the requirement of going to a police station to register the loss and possibly getting an acknowledgement! And you know easy (or relishing experience) that can be!

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Sudhir Parasuram is an employee of HCL Technologies Ltd, working for Cisco Systems Inc. Everything here, though, is his personal opinion and is not read or approved by others before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else offered here.